11 ms·

Philosophy of Computer Science [pdf]

284 points by quazar 7y ago

dredmorbius 7y ago
This is obviously too big to be digested in a single chunk, but from a very brief first read, it looks impressive. The table of contents alone (19 pages) is an extraordinarily good outline of what CS is, and what the major components and questions of it are. The author is William J. Rapaport, emeritus professor of computer science at SUNY Buffalo: https://cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/ https://cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/ Wikipedia bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Rapaport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Rapaport Trivium: WJR is the author of "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". There've been some earlier submissions, few with much discussion, though from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10388603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10388603 Also relevant, the "Philosophy of Computer Science" article at the Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16451072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16451072 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/
- smikhanov 7y ago
  ... earlier submissions ... The front page of the PDF is dated 6 September, so this most likely is some newer revision.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    The book has been in process for years. The previous 2015 draft was 824 pages, it's now 928. I suspect a periodically-updated LaTeX draft with an auto-date macro. From the preface: This document is a continually-being-revised draft of a textbook on the philosophy of computer science. It is based on a course I created for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The latest (August 2019) edition significantly updates/adds chapters 5 ("What is Engineering") and 20 ("Computer Ethics II: AI").
- daviddaviddavid 7y ago
  Another fun fact about Bill Rapaport (mostly of interest to Buffalonians) is that he was the author/maintainer of what used to be the best Buffalo restaurant guide on the web: https://cse.buffalo.edu/restaurant.guide/ https://cse.buffalo.edu/restaurant.guide/
- makeset 7y ago
  > Trivium: WJR is the author of "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". You're off by a couple of buffalo :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    I've always tried to avoid buffaloing buffalo.
tndl 7y ago
>Ch 2. What is philosophy Man, he's leaving no stone unturned.
iamvik 7y ago
looks fun, but man, do you really need to make subsubsubsubsubsections?
crimsonalucard 7y ago
Philosophy is advertised as something more fundamental than logic itself. Here it's advertised as something more fundamental than computer science. But when I read stuff like this I question the veracity of it all. The very first section seems to be talking about "science" and "computer science" then it goes on to talk about ethics... Is this really legit? I mean what "science" means and what "computer science" means is more of a english language problem then some fundamental aspect of reality... and ethics are just rules that govern human behavior and the human condition... does this really need to be merged with the formal fundamentals of computer science? It's like saying english literature is part of quantum theory or that morality is intrinsic to classical mechanics. I'm curious but as an outsider looking in... it looks like a load of BS. Any top tier theoretical mathematicians or hardcore scientists have anything to say about philosophy? Or even the philosophy behind computer science? Is it worth reading this stuff?
- j1vms 7y ago
  Philosophy is the study of knowledge, including the idea of "knowing", and furthermore even being in a position to know (existence). It is indeed more fundamental, as it was probably the discipline in which first useful breakthroughs were made in human thought. Though we would do well not to confuse being more fundamental, with being more important (as far as people & society today are concerned). In a way, it is the fuzzy wiring that underlies most other disciplines, that you need to poke around in when you run into longstanding, or seemingly intractable problems in what you're trying to do above. See for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905801
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    Computer science itself doesn't have ethics. It's like saying arithmetic has ethics. My question is why is philosophy including it as if it's part of the framework of computer science. It makes philosophy seem illegitimate.
    - finolex1 7y ago
jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
Whoah. He goes for 360+ pages before even touching the titular subject of his book. I would have preferred a simple glossary of terms, or maybe just release 3 books instead of one? It sounds like he wants to teach this book in schools, but as a student, I could easily imagine the professor telling me to buy this whole book just so we can study the last 400 pages. I think it's a waste of money when the professor asks me to buy an entire book because he or she just wants to look at a few chapters.
- esfandia 7y ago
  But his book is freely available as a PDF.
- Pywarrior 7y ago
  ...and a nice size TODO section
conscion 7y ago
Is there a print copy of this book purchasable anywhere? Reading PDFs of this length is difficult for me.
- breerly 7y ago
  +1000
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Not AFAIU, though: - Reading this on a tablet works pretty well (9" or larger). I find PocketBook Reader is quite good, FBReader is another option. Both are far more functional than a basic PDF reader. - You could print the text directly and bind it at virtually any print shop.
MatthiasP 7y ago
TL;DR; The major question in the philosophy of computer science, according to Smith, is: What is computation?
ProfHewitt 7y ago
This is an excellent summary of older work but it needs to be updated with modern type theory. See the following: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3418003 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3418003
Davidbrcz 7y ago
I was expecting this without looking at the website : https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ Seems to be more relevant.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  The Stanford reference is more concise. Rappaport's is far more inclusive and comprehensive. Both are highly worthwhile.
Bromskloss 7y ago
What section of it should I read to get an idea of what, according to the author, "philosophy of computer science" is?
- kd0amg 7y ago
  The table of contents is surprisingly thorough in covering this topic.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Start with the ToC, as suggested. It provides an excellent overview and framework. The first four chapters (and preface) largely answer this question. Though of course, the answer is what the entire book is about.
dredmorbius 7y ago
FYI, Rappaport suggests another book on this topic, somewhat shorter: Computational Artifacts: Towards a Philosophy of Computer Science, by Raymond Turner. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783662555644# https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783662555644#
oceanghost 7y ago
Thank you, Mr. Rapaport! Gonna break out my new Xerox Phaser tomorrow and print this out for reading. I am super excited as I've become quite bored with Computer Science since reading Zen and the Art and connecting with it deeply. When you publish, I'll be happy to purchase a copy.

284 points by quazar 7y ago

This is obviously too big to be digested in a single chunk, but from a very brief first read, it looks impressive. The table of contents alone (19 pages) is an extraordinarily good outline of what CS is, and what the major components and questions of it are. The author is William J. Rapaport, emeritus professor of computer science at SUNY Buffalo: https://cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/ https://cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/ Wikipedia bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Rapaport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Rapaport Trivium: WJR is the author of "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". There've been some earlier submissions, few with much discussion, though from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10388603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10388603 Also relevant, the "Philosophy of Computer Science" article at the Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16451072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16451072 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/

smikhanov 7y ago
... earlier submissions ... The front page of the PDF is dated 6 September, so this most likely is some newer revision.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  The book has been in process for years. The previous 2015 draft was 824 pages, it's now 928. I suspect a periodically-updated LaTeX draft with an auto-date macro. From the preface: This document is a continually-being-revised draft of a textbook on the philosophy of computer science. It is based on a course I created for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The latest (August 2019) edition significantly updates/adds chapters 5 ("What is Engineering") and 20 ("Computer Ethics II: AI").
daviddaviddavid 7y ago
Another fun fact about Bill Rapaport (mostly of interest to Buffalonians) is that he was the author/maintainer of what used to be the best Buffalo restaurant guide on the web: https://cse.buffalo.edu/restaurant.guide/ https://cse.buffalo.edu/restaurant.guide/
makeset 7y ago
> Trivium: WJR is the author of "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". You're off by a couple of buffalo :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  I've always tried to avoid buffaloing buffalo.

tndl 7y ago

>Ch 2. What is philosophy Man, he's leaving no stone unturned.

iamvik 7y ago

looks fun, but man, do you really need to make subsubsubsubsubsections?

crimsonalucard 7y ago

Philosophy is advertised as something more fundamental than logic itself. Here it's advertised as something more fundamental than computer science. But when I read stuff like this I question the veracity of it all. The very first section seems to be talking about "science" and "computer science" then it goes on to talk about ethics... Is this really legit? I mean what "science" means and what "computer science" means is more of a english language problem then some fundamental aspect of reality... and ethics are just rules that govern human behavior and the human condition... does this really need to be merged with the formal fundamentals of computer science? It's like saying english literature is part of quantum theory or that morality is intrinsic to classical mechanics. I'm curious but as an outsider looking in... it looks like a load of BS. Any top tier theoretical mathematicians or hardcore scientists have anything to say about philosophy? Or even the philosophy behind computer science? Is it worth reading this stuff?

j1vms 7y ago
Philosophy is the study of knowledge, including the idea of "knowing", and furthermore even being in a position to know (existence). It is indeed more fundamental, as it was probably the discipline in which first useful breakthroughs were made in human thought. Though we would do well not to confuse being more fundamental, with being more important (as far as people & society today are concerned). In a way, it is the fuzzy wiring that underlies most other disciplines, that you need to poke around in when you run into longstanding, or seemingly intractable problems in what you're trying to do above. See for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905801
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Computer science itself doesn't have ethics. It's like saying arithmetic has ethics. My question is why is philosophy including it as if it's part of the framework of computer science. It makes philosophy seem illegitimate.
  - finolex1 7y ago

jacobwilliamroy 7y ago

Whoah. He goes for 360+ pages before even touching the titular subject of his book. I would have preferred a simple glossary of terms, or maybe just release 3 books instead of one? It sounds like he wants to teach this book in schools, but as a student, I could easily imagine the professor telling me to buy this whole book just so we can study the last 400 pages. I think it's a waste of money when the professor asks me to buy an entire book because he or she just wants to look at a few chapters.

esfandia 7y ago
But his book is freely available as a PDF.
Pywarrior 7y ago
...and a nice size TODO section

conscion 7y ago

Is there a print copy of this book purchasable anywhere? Reading PDFs of this length is difficult for me.

breerly 7y ago
+1000
dredmorbius 7y ago
Not AFAIU, though: - Reading this on a tablet works pretty well (9" or larger). I find PocketBook Reader is quite good, FBReader is another option. Both are far more functional than a basic PDF reader. - You could print the text directly and bind it at virtually any print shop.

MatthiasP 7y ago

TL;DR; The major question in the philosophy of computer science, according to Smith, is: What is computation?

ProfHewitt 7y ago

This is an excellent summary of older work but it needs to be updated with modern type theory. See the following: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3418003 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3418003

Davidbrcz 7y ago

I was expecting this without looking at the website : https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ Seems to be more relevant.

dredmorbius 7y ago
The Stanford reference is more concise. Rappaport's is far more inclusive and comprehensive. Both are highly worthwhile.

Bromskloss 7y ago

What section of it should I read to get an idea of what, according to the author, "philosophy of computer science" is?

kd0amg 7y ago
The table of contents is surprisingly thorough in covering this topic.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Start with the ToC, as suggested. It provides an excellent overview and framework. The first four chapters (and preface) largely answer this question. Though of course, the answer is what the entire book is about.

dredmorbius 7y ago

FYI, Rappaport suggests another book on this topic, somewhat shorter: Computational Artifacts: Towards a Philosophy of Computer Science, by Raymond Turner. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783662555644# https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783662555644#

oceanghost 7y ago

Thank you, Mr. Rapaport! Gonna break out my new Xerox Phaser tomorrow and print this out for reading. I am super excited as I've become quite bored with Computer Science since reading Zen and the Art and connecting with it deeply. When you publish, I'll be happy to purchase a copy.